


my universe will never be the same (i'm glad you came)

by LucyInTheSky (WishingTree)



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: F/F, Gen, not consciously but that's what happens, team fic, the team tries to annoy trini into loving them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-18 06:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11285379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishingTree/pseuds/LucyInTheSky
Summary: Trini’s plan for Angel Grove is simple: keep her head down, go to school, avoid her parents, wait until they inevitably pack up and move again. She hates it, but that’s the way it is. Don’t get attached, don’t get invested. She knows the routine by now.And then she gets blasted off a mountain.And then she gets hit by atrain.And then… and then she saves the world.





	my universe will never be the same (i'm glad you came)

**Author's Note:**

> sorry there isn’t as much billy as the others, i wanted to write him more but I couldn’t think of situations where he’d be an annoyance! billy cranston too good for this world and also this fic 
> 
>  
> 
> so I was watching power rangers cast interviews at 1 in the morning and had this vision of grumpy trini trying not to let herself get endeared by this group of losers

The first time she spotted the guy lounging on an old train car across the mines, she tensed, instantly on guard. The mountains in the abandoned gold mine had seemed like the perfect place for her to hang out, isolated and calming, but she wouldn’t hesitate to leave and find a new spot if some weird guy was going to be there harassing her all the time.

He waved and she didn’t react, pretending she hadn't seen him. He tried a couple more times over the weeks, but always from the old train, and eventually he gave up when she never showed any signs of acknowledgment.

Sometimes she wondered what his deal was, that he seemed to make it a habit to camp out on decrepit old train cars in the middle of an old mine at all hours of day, but she always shook her head and let it go. It was none of her business, and she supposed if she was going by ‘normal’ standards, doing yoga on a clifftop wasn’t quite it either.

 

 

 

One night, there was a not-so-distant explosion drawing her out of her admittedly broody thoughts, and Trini picked herself up off the ground and ran towards the sound. She wound up on one of the elevated trails, and there was a group of three guys crowding each other below her, along with a shorthaired girl wearing a backpack hovering next to them.

She recognized Billy Cranston from the couple of times she’d seen him digging around the mine, though he’d never been so disruptive as to start blowing pieces of it up. He was face to face with the train guy, and Jason Scott was there, for some reason. They seemed to be arguing about something, shoving at each other, but Trini was distracted as the girl finally turned in her direction. She’d recognize her anywhere, and Trini scowled.

Kimberly Hart. Of course. She’d seen her up here before too, though she’d been sporting longer hair and generally stayed in the woods, fond of swimming and backflipping off of cliffs like a crazy person.

And now they were all here, yelling as if it wasn’t basically the middle of the night, and Trini glared at them.

Fucking inconvenient.

“Hey!” she yelled down impatiently when they showed no sign of getting themselves under control, “You guys looking to get busted or something? This place is a restricted area!”

The guy from the train car looked up at her with a challenging look on his face. “Oh, really Einstein, restricted? As in, we shouldn’t be standing on crazy rocks doing karate kid moves, right? Yeah, I see you.”

Trini scoffed, rolling her eyes to the side before looking back at him. “Yeah, or uh, camping out on old trains? I see you too, homeboy.” He shot her the typical roguish grin that all teenaged boys seemed to know, and Trini glowered, deciding to ignore him.

Frustrated, she shook her head, wondering why none of them seemed to be concerned that if anybody made too much noise they were _all_ going to get caught. “There’s a lot of mine security out tonight,” she said, hoping the reminder would get it through their heads.

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen her before.”

The comments from Kimberly Hart and Jason Scott carried up to her, and she rolled her eyes. Obviously they didn’t know who she was. Nobody ever did.

She noticed Billy had pulled away from the others just as she felt the tremors in the mountain, way too strong.

There was a deep rumbling sound and a warning shout from Billy, and then the rock she was standing on started shifting in a way that nothing solid ever should. She screamed as everything fell out from under her feet, sneakers slipping on the loose rubble as it crumbled beneath her, and she plummeted down towards the quarry, arms covering her head.

Slamming hard into the ground, she rolled through clouds of dust and mounds of rubble before coming to a stop, lying on her side and groaning.

“Are you okay?” one of the guys asked her, and Trini kept her eyes squeezed shut, answering on instinct.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay.” Her hands were still raised over her head, pressing her beanie down, and Trini took a rattling breath, trying to breathe through the nausea that came from the impact as well as get some oxygen into her lungs through all the dust in the air. She gasped and kept coughing, pressing a tentative hand against her side and wincing at the tenderness. That was going to bruise. She was probably lucky she hadn’t broken anything with a fall like that, and she groaned again, lowering her head and preparing herself to stand.

Opening her eyes, the first thing Trini saw when she sat up was Kimberly Hart, crouching in front of her with her hand held out. Her hair was flying around her face in a way Trini could only describe as enchanting, like it belonged in an animated fairytale, and she blinked hard, wondering if she had hit her head in the fall.

Dumbstruck, Trini let Kimberly help her to her feet, holding on to her hand for a moment too long before she remembered to pull it back. She hastily retreated, spinning to face the others and trying to brush herself off while making sure her beanie was still secure. One of her arms hurt more than the other, and she held it close to her body, rotating her wrist to try and loosen it up.

Nobody seemed concerned that they had just _blown up a mountain_ , and Trini sincerely hoped she wouldn’t be saddled with dealing with any of the consequences that would come from it.

“Woah.”

Looking up, Trini’s eyes widened at the sight in front of her. Inside the rock of the cliff was apparently some kind of trippy black glass-like wall, uncovered by Billy’s explosion.

They all moved closer, and Trini noted with some despair that she was still standing next to Kimberly. She had pulled out her phone to use the flashlight, and the light did nothing except accentuate the strange other-ness that seemed to radiate from the wall. Unbidden, Trini raised a hand and reached out, seeing the others doing the same out of the corner of her eye.

“There’s something in there,” Kimberly murmured, putting her face closer and pointing. Trini leaned in as well, spotting a handful of small colored spots that were reflecting the light differently from the rest of the wall.

Suddenly, she was pushed out of the way by Kimberly stepping backwards, making room for train-guy as he rushed forward with a hasty, “Watch out.” He started hacking at the wall, and Trini gaped at him.

“Seriously?!”

Yes, Trini would agree. Pretty wall. Cool mountain. But you didn’t take a fucking pickaxe to it, no matter how many shiny colors were in it, or how weirdly magnetic they felt, like they were being pulled towards them. Trini furrowed her brow, glancing to the side to see if the others were feeling the same thing she was.

Kimberly picked one up and held it in front of her phone flashlight, and her wide-eyed look of amazement made Trini suspect that they really were all feeling the same thing.

By the time he lowered the pickaxe, each of them was holding some kind of disc, a coin that fit in the palm of Trini’s hand. A quick scan showed that they were each holding a different color, and Trini’s brow furrowed as she brushed hers off, a pulsing yellow like nothing she’d ever seen before.

Suddenly the wail of an alarm pierced the silence of the night, although it seemed like Kimberly was the only other one to hear it.

“Guys, guys, do you hear that?”

“Mine security.”

Trini rolled her eyes again, setting her jaw. “Somebody should have pointed that out! Wait. I _did_.” She turned and started running, taking the first path she knew would lead to an exit. Everyone scattered, and she didn’t particularly care where they went.

They were annoying, and reckless, and at the rate they were going, were all going to get themselves killed in some dumb accident before the year was up.

“This way!” Kimberly cried from right beside her, and Trini started in surprise, almost losing her footing on the uneven ground.

After a moments hesitation, Trini nodded and increased her speed to follow Kimberly, because even if she didn’t particularly like her, at least they were in the same grade at school, and that was enough to stay with her on their run from security.

Jason and Billy came out of nowhere with a van, and they both piled inside, squashing into the backseat. The scenery flew by, a train speeding along the tracks, and then there was a bang that caused an indentation in the car ceiling. They all screamed and ducked, and Trini knew it was train guy even before his screaming face appeared upside down next to the window.

Pressed in next to her, Trini could feel Kimberly shaking, staring out the windshield with a worryingly blank expression.

“Oh my god.”

Kimberly’s hand grabbed her arm, fingers gripping tightly at her sleeve, and Trini did nothing to stop her. The yellow coin she’d shoved into her pocket started buzzing, and she slapped her other hand over it, surprised to feel it radiating heat through the material of her jeans.

“Look, there’s the railroad crossing! That’s the way out, Billy. You got it!” Jason spurred him on, and Zack echoed it fervently.

“You got it!”

Trini squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh I hope he has it.”

“He definitely doesn’t have it.”

“I got it, I got it!”

A violent impact sent Trini careening to the side, knocking her right into Kimberly and then slamming into the van door as glass shattered around them. Spinning upside down as the car flipped through the air, her last thought before everything went dark was how much trouble she was going to get into for this, and how nice Kimberly Hart’s hair smelled.

 

She woke up in her own room, on her own bed and still in her grimy clothes from the day before. Blinking hard at the wall, she didn’t move from the position she’d jerked into.

“What the fuck.” 

A strange buzzing sound drew her from her reverie, and she turned her head to see the yellow coin sitting innocently on the corner of her desk. She blinked at it before standing, muttering, “Nope. Nuh uh.”

Mechanically, she started to gather what she needed for a shower, not knowing what else to do. Her day had just begun and it was already too weird for her.

Of course, it had to get weirder, and she somehow cracked her closet door when she pushed it aside to grab some clean clothes, wood splintering right down the middle. She was so surprised that she stepped back and put her foot through the side of her dresser.

Because apparently that was possible now.

Trini didn’t know what was going on, but she was willing to bet it had something to do with that weird group of kids that had gotten her hit by a train.

She crept across the hall into the bathroom, closing the door inch by inch with as much care as her exhausted limbs could manage, and sighed in relief when nothing else broke. Carefully, she got ready for her shower and stepped inside, gingerly closing the door behind her, relieved when there was no more damage. She started the water and picked up her shampoo bottle, and it promptly burst in her grip, exploding all over her and the wall of the shower.

Staying still, she slowly brought up a hand to wipe her eyes while she spit out shampoo. Blinking sluggishly, she looked down at destroyed piece of plastic in her hand and groaned.

 

 

 

Her mother managed to intercept her before she could leave the house, disrupting her plan of hiding in the library for the whole day and figuring out what to do at school for Monday. 

“So what time did you get home last night?” her mother asked with forced casualness, and though this wasn’t the first time Trini had heard the question, it was the first time she was telling the truth when she said she didn’t know.

She suffered through another barrage of questions thinly disguised as concern about how she was adjusting to school even a year in, but Trini didn’t think her parents deserved to do that when any trouble she had adjusting was completely their fault to begin with. They had to have expected something after making her pack up her life time and time again.

“Any friends yet?”

“What’s the point?” she grumbled, pretending she didn’t see the distressed look her dad shot her mom. She had a headache, and she could hear an aggressive sounding hum in the air, getting louder and causing her pulse to stutter uncomfortably. She shifted on her feet and rolled her neck, suddenly feeling stifled by the collar of her shirt and the atmosphere in the house.

“Trini, mija, I really think – ” 

“Look, I have to go.” She closed her eyes and grimaced at her own curt tone of voice, but only shook her head apologetically, not looking at her parents as she moved around them to the door.

Stepping outside, she stopped when she reached the sidewalk, rubbing her temple and trying to ignore the heavy feeling in her chest that came with her parents being disappointed in her. It used to be easy, pretending it didn’t affect her, but over the last few years it had become increasingly difficult to brush off. Sighing, she tilted her face towards the sun as she tried to decide where to go.

Though she wanted answers, she still felt rattled, and even with her shiny yellow coin tucked into her pocket, something was telling her not to go back to the mine immediately. It was probably what was left of her self-preservation skills, because no sane person would immediately head back there after living through what they had.

Trini spared a thought for the others who had been in the van with her, but then firmly put them out of her mind. If she had been magically teleported back home, completely fine, then so had they. Besides, she didn’t have any of their numbers or know where any of them lived, so she couldn’t check on them even if she wanted to.

 

 

 

Monday rolled around and Trini dragged herself out of bed early, packing her bag with the intention of heading straight to the mine after school. At lunch, she spotted Kimberly, Jason, and Billy huddled together in the cafeteria, and smoothly turned around and walked right back out. It may have been past noon, but it was still too early to deal with any of them, especially after they’d all shared a definite-death experience, a complete level above any near-death experience.

She sprinted to the mine after school, moving at speeds that weren’t possible for humans to run at, but she arrived with her face split into a wide smile. Apparently something good had come out of this whole mess after all.

She started her trek, and at one of the turns on her normal path to the high rocks she usually did yoga on, she paused and looked up. She could just see her spot, sticking out between the trees, but there was a sheer cliff face blocking her from it.

Trini tilted her head as she stared at it, fingers flexing around her backpack straps, and then blinked when she felt the coin heat up again. She looked down and dug it out of her pocket, holding it balanced in her palm and staring as it glinted in the afternoon sun. It wasn’t the alarming burning heat from before, this time more of a gentle encouraging warmth, though Trini had no idea how the hell a _coin_ could be supportive. It was a hunk of metal. Glass. Shiny gemstone. Trini didn’t know what it was, but she was pretty sure it couldn’t be sentient.

She held it up to the sun again, moving it from side to side, and then her gaze slid past it to the mountain in front of her again. Slowly, she lowered her arm and then put the coin back into her pocket.

Working on a hunch, Trini stepped forwards and propped one foot up on a piece of rock jutting out of the side of the mountain, pushing up and reaching for a handhold. To her utter shock and amazement, she completely overshot the one that had been just over her head, instead jumping at least a solid 10 feet into the air, now dangling with just one hand. She hastily gripped her other hand and found some toeholds, but laughed in delight as she looked down and then back up again, at the top of the cliff that suddenly didn’t seem so far away at all.

Reaching up again, Trini tried to climb instead of flinging herself upwards, and was pleasantly surprised when she was able to move even faster, the rock suddenly as easy to climb as it was to breathe.

She laughed loudly as the air rushed past her, cheeks flushed with a wide smile on her face as her hand eventually touched the grass at the top, and she heaved herself up, sitting and dangling her legs over the edge. A sense of peace washed over her as she gazed out at the town in the distance, and she sighed, feeling comfortable for the first time in days.

She spent a couple hours there before starting to hike back down, taking the long way this time, same path she’d taken Saturday night.

“Hey!” A voice suddenly called up to her, and Trini stopped walking. “Come on down! We should figure this out together!”

Unbelievable.

The four kids from the other night were all standing there again, at the base of the mountain she’d been blown off of, and Trini barely resisted the urge to stomp her foot.

She turned away instead and scurried up the mountain, using her limited practice to try and speed away from the others before they discovered their own abilities, presumably identical to her own.

She thought she had enough of a head start to be in the clear, but then there were footsteps close behind her, and shit Kimberly was fast. She continued running forwards, but abruptly realized she had to backpedal when she saw the cliff coming up.

“Stop!” Kimberly cried out behind her, and Trini skidded to a halt just as she reached the edge, knocking off some loose rocks and watching them fall and vanish from sight. There was nowhere for her to go, and behind her the others approached, boxing her in.

“Just – just talk to me.”

Trini reluctantly tore her eyes away from the opposite cliff and moved towards her, not wanting to be forced into having a conversation with any of them.

“You have a coin, we have a coin – we should just talk about this, I mean, we don’t know what it – ”

Making her decision, Trini turned and sprinted for the edge of the cliff, deciding the jump to get away from them was worth the risk.

Luckily, her suspicion was correct, and the exhilaration that came from soaring through the air took the sting away when she stumbled the landing, scraping her knees and the palms of her hands. An amazed smile spread across her face as she looked down at herself in wonder.

“Hah, you’re crazy, but so am I!”

There was a beat before Trini lifted her head, and Zack crashed right into her, sending them both to the floor. Groaning again at the hit, Trini pushed her beanie up from where it had fallen into her eyes and picked herself up off the ground, brushing her clothes off. She scowled when she felt Zack’s hand wrap around her ankle.

“Get off me,” she kicked him off and made her way over to sit on a nearby boulder, ignoring Zack as he yelled at the others to jump over. Jason and Kimberly went at the same time, and she couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of star quarterback Jason Scott eating dirt as he belly flopped his landing.

It was also easier to focus on him than on Kimberly Hart sliding gracefully and somehow managing to keep herself on her feet, still looking suave in her leather jacket as she pushed herself up. Trini looked down again, distracting herself by trying to knock the dirt off her pant leg.

She stayed quiet as the others tried to convince Billy to jump over, but then he hurled himself into the air so suddenly that Trini stood, watching with wide eyes as he approached. He hit the rocks hard, hanging on to the edge with half his body dangling, and their joy was infectious as they congratulated him.

Then he climbed on to solid ground, and then he started dancing, and then he _fell_ , disappearing backwards just like the dirt and pebbles Trini had knocked over earlier, and Trini’s blood ran cold.

Horrified, she stared at the spot where he had been standing, and she could swear her heart stopped beating.

“Hey guys, you gotta come down here. I swear, you gotta see this!”

Billy’s excited voice echoed up to them, and Trini laughed delightedly at the sound. Next to her, Kimberly folded in on herself in relief, and she could hear Jason and Zack’s relief. She turned to leave, satisfied that at least nobody had died on her watch, but before she could make it two steps, Zack was pointing at her again, and Trini almost couldn’t believe that he was going to join Billy at the bottom of the cliff voluntarily.

He leaped over the edge, and then Jason jumped after him, and then there was only Kimberly left, facing Trini as an awkward mask slid over her face.

Trini grabbed the straps of her bag and turned to leave, having zero intention of actually following the guys over the edge, but Kimberly’s voice stopped her. She wasn’t entirely clear on what happened next, because all Kimberly did was ask her for a sip of water, but then Kimberly was darting forward and grabbing her shoulders, pulling her towards the edge of the cliff. Trini found herself falling again, her scream echoing, and used both hands to hold on to her beanie as she sucked in a breath, squeezing her eyes shut.

They hit the water with a splash, and Trini gasped as her head broke through the surface, put out that Kimberly’s little trick had actually worked on her but surprised to find that she had actually enjoyed the fall. She looked up, examining the cave from her new perspective.

The others were chattering happily around her, and Kimberly was spitting out water with a wide smile, hair plastered to her face. Kimberly’s eyes were shining when they met hers, and for a moment Trini forgot to be annoyed with her.

Somehow, this mess of teenagers came to the consensus that diving down deeper into the water was a good idea, and Trini rolled her eyes, casting one last look around the cave before diving after them.

 

So it turned out that they were Power Rangers, they didn’t die because of their colored power coins, and they had to protect the planet from an alien lady named Rita who was coming to kill them all in 11 days. She’d known from the beginning that this would bring nothing but trouble to her life.

Also, evil lady’s name was Rita. Trini didn’t know why none of the others seemed to find that ridiculous.

 

 

 

“Hey, we’re meeting at the base of the mountain today for training, not at the cliff, okay?” Jason stopped her in the hall a couple days later to pass along the message, although Trini didn’t know why he didn’t just text it to her.

“Yeah, sure,” she agreed, caught off guard by him approaching her in the middle of the hallway but seeing no issue with them training in a new environment. It might be nice to spend some time training in the sun.

She then shifted uncomfortably on her feet, painfully aware of how weird this must look to other students. This was the first time any of the other Rangers had interacted with her in school, aside from a few words exchanged with Kimberly in bio class.

Jason slapped her on the back and shot her actual finger guns as he backed away, the nerd. “Right then, I’ll see you later, okay?” He didn’t wait for an answer before disappearing around the corner, leaving Trini alone again. 

Everyone was staring at her now, expressions ranging from shocked to confused to horrified, and Trini glowered, hiking her bag higher up on her shoulder.

Inconvenient.

 

 

 

“I got an extra credit assignment from my history teacher, but it’s due on Monday and I don’t have time to…” Trini didn’t hear the rest of Kimberly’s complaint, too busy actively ignoring her so she could try and get some studying done.

Trini propped her head up on her closed fist, using her other hand to rub at her eyes while she glanced over the papers Kimberly had spread across the table. She was gesturing at a floor plan of the local museum’s newest exhibit, and Trini wondered what her assignment was.

“Yeah, it’s super easy to get through that wing,” Trini commented, blinking slowly and going back to her review sheet.

“What? Show me.” Kimberly latched onto her arm and Trini leaned back, the intense look on Kimberly’s face alarming her.

“I – what?” Trini tried to replay what had just happened, because she didn’t remember saying anything particularly significant.

“My assignment, I have to fill out this questionnaire on the exhibit and then write a couple hundred words on one of the pieces, have you been? Can you help me get through it?”

Trini stared at her with wide eyes. She was already spending every spare moment training with the Rangers, Kimberly ever present, and now she wanted her to spend her Sunday helping her do an extra credit assignment that could easily be done alone, for some reason.

“I – uh, I guess?”

“Thank you!” Kimberly pulled her forward and wrapped both arms around her in a hug. “Thank you thank you, I promise we’ll have fun, I’ll buy you some ice cream or something after!”

Trini coughed when she pulled away, but nodded as she went back to her own homework, cheeks reddening slightly for reasons she didn’t fully understand.

 

 

 

Moving around so frequently meant that the progress of her schooling was a bit weird. Some schools taught certain things earlier than others, and others chose to focus on different topics. It left Trini obscenely far ahead in some classes at Angel Grove, and at a distinct disadvantage in others.

It wasn’t always fun, but she was bright and knew how to play catch-up by now. The annoying part came when the others realized how much she already knew about some of the lessons in class, because it inevitable came with requests for help with schoolwork and studying.

Now, none of the Rangers were stupid, not by a long shot, but they weren’t the most focused bunch of students, and working with them like this made her feel like she was corralling an unruly herd of misbehaving, easily distractible kittens, instead of teenagers trying to understand the basics of trigonometric functions.

When Billy broke out some kind of schematic for a hypothetical alien teleporter on his tablet and Kimberly leaned into her side for the third time in ten minutes, Trini gave up and focused on keeping her breathing even instead. By the end of the hour, Trini and Kimberly were holding hands under the table, Kimberly having tangled her fingers with Trini’s to stop her from drumming her fingers on her knee. Trini stayed quiet, listening to the conversation bounce all over the place, but she never pulled her hand away.

 

 

 

Billy was sitting on his own at a cafeteria table as she walked by, and when he waved her over with an excited smile on his face, she couldn't refuse. It was nice sitting with Billy, and Trini liked talking to him, but when Kimberly showed up and dropped herself into the seat beside Trini, a hush immediately fell over the entire room.

Billy and Kimberly didn't react, continuing with their conversation about something that had gone wrong in their science class, but Trini hunched down in her seat, tips of her ears burning red as she tried to go back to being invisible and insignificant.

This was the pattern that repeated itself as the week went on, having all the attention on her in the cafeteria, and Trini didn’t like it one bit. Day after day, the same thing happened, because apparently the student body just couldn’t adapt to the used-to-be most popular kids in school sitting with the nobodies.

Predictably, during the next lunch hour the same hush that Trini was really starting to _hate_ fell over the room again, with everyone staring at her as they whispered comments and watched with wide eyes. That was what tipped her off to Jason arriving, smiling as he greeted them and put his tray down next to Billy’s.

Trini groaned and dropped her head onto the table, covering her head with her arms.

 

 

 

She was minding her own business, switching her books out at her locker 2 minutes before the bell when she sensed somebody come up behind her, moving too quickly for comfort. Instantly on guard, she whirled around and braced herself, one hand out to slam her locker shut in the same motion. When she found herself face to face with Zack, she huffed and dropped her instinctive battle stance, bending to pick up her bag and turning to reopen her locker again.

“Did you finally show up to school just so you could bug me?”

“Nah, you’re not that important, crazy girl. No, I came because I had a brilliant idea this morning.”

“Was it that going to class might improve your grades?” Trini deadpanned, replacing her books and zipping up her bag. The warning bell rang and she started to move towards her classroom, Zack falling into step beside her.

“Nope, I was thinking that you should totally ask Kimberly out. You know, to her face. Take her out for dinner.”

Trini stopped in her tracks, ignoring the sound of the school bell going off.

“Of course _you_ don’t think it’s a good idea, but that’s why I’m here. Can you blame me if I want to help two of my friends get their shit together and go on a date?” She gaped at Zack while he gave her a winning smile.

“Dude, what the hell are you talking about?” Trini finally asked in a strangled tone of voice, and she wasn’t sure if she was referring to the dating part or the friend part, but they were interrupted before he could give her an answer.

“Mr. Taylor! How kind of you to grace us with your presence,” Trini jumped, startled by the icy voice of a teacher so close behind her. “And I see you’ve made a friend. Well, you’ll both have plenty of time to catch up with each other later.”

“Hey Mr. B, long time no see!” Zack greeted the teacher with a grin on his face, posture relaxed in the perfect picture of ease Trini could never pull off in face of a teacher. Or any adult. Scratch that, any other person.

“Are you aware that the bell has already rung, and neither of you are anywhere near your classes?”

“Oh, is that what that sound was?”

Trini brought up one hand to cover her face at his answer, shaking her head as the teacher leveled Zack with an unimpressed look.

“We’re just enjoying the day, Mr. B. Carpe diem, you know?” Zack spread his arms out wide. “How’s your day going?”

Mr. B gave them a look that spoke volumes to how his day was going. “Just fine, thank you. However, for you and your friend?” He paused, and Zack bounced up onto his toes while Trini plotted her fellow Ranger’s death. The teacher sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before exhaling and stating flatly, “Detention.”

 

 

 

“Detention?” her mother said, sounding aghast, “You got detention?”

Trini sighed, slouching in her seat as she played with the food on her plate. “It’s not that big of a deal, it’s just an hour after school tomorrow.”

“Of course it’s a big deal! Since when do you get detention? Are you trying to tell us something? Is this you acting out about moving again?”

Trini was still feeling unsettled by Zack’s dating comment, the unease prickling beneath her skin and running up her spine, and she was in no mood to deal with her mother’s incessant questioning, or her veiled accusations.

“Mom…” Trini tried to stop her, but she didn’t have the energy to get into it. She stood instead, gathering her plate. “I promise you, I was just a little late to class, it won’t happen again. I’m going to get started on the dishes.”

“Trini, come on, this isn’t who you are,” her mom tried, and Trini rolled her eyes.

“And how would you know who I am?” It came out sounding so tired, and Trini shook her head, turning away from her. She made it to the sanctuary that was the empty kitchen, and let her shoulders slump, wishing Zack hadn’t opened his mouth, or landed her in detention.

 

 

 

Trini had her head propped up on one hand, staring down at her notebook when Kimberly found her in the library.

“Hey!” she said quietly, smiling at Trini as she set her bag down and pulled out the chair across from her, “I was wondering where you went. Billy told me you sometimes hang out here between classes.”

“Uh…” Trini returned her smile hesitantly, but her entire body had already stiffened up, mind whirling into overdrive as she tried to keep her fight or flight reflexes under control.

  Kimberly was here. That was a fact, and Trini couldn’t change it. All she had to do was nothing, keep sitting here and act like a normal person. Kimberly was here, and Trini was going to be cool, even though she hated how much the other girl’s presence was distracting her, and she hated how Zack had said the words ‘dating’ and ‘Kimberly’ in the same sentence, because now there was never going to be a moment of peace in her mind ever again.

She wasn’t used to this. Nobody ever spoke to her while she was in the library, and that meant she didn’t have to figure out how to respond. It was nice, exactly the way she liked it. She couldn’t just ignore Kimberly like she did everyone else, and she hoped there wasn’t any signs of panic on her face.

Except, surprisingly, she didn’t have to keep agonizing over what to do, because Kimberly just smiled at her and pulled a book out of her bag, settling into the chair and starting to read.

Trini’s grip on her pen slowly relaxed, and she started to fidget with it instead, spinning it in loose circles around her fingers. Across from her, Kimberly sat calmly, curling a lock of hair around her finger as she read, and Trini frowned. She never would have found herself in this situation two weeks ago.

 

 

 

“Anybody? Somebody here has to know the answer. No?” The teacher kept talking as she paced around the front of the room, waiting for a student to volunteer an answer to her question. “Trini? How about you?”

Trini jerked her head up at the sound of her name, drawn away from where she was scribbling notes.

Teachers didn’t know her name. None of them knew who she was, and therefore she never got called on in class. It was a great system, one that she’d used for her last two schools, and it worked. So why was this happening now?

Jason gave her an encouraging look from his desk on the other side of the room, and Trini narrowed her eyes at the realization that her proximity to him, and probably also Kimberly, had lead to the teachers learning who she was.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Trini fumbled through an answer, and when Jason nodded at her approvingly, Trini resolved to punch him extra hard next time they had training.

 

 

 

Midway through lunch several days later, Trini suddenly stopped in horror, hand holding her food frozen halfway between the table and her mouth.

Because Billy had just pushed his food away, declaring that him and Kimberly were going to test their powers after school by racing through the mountain, and Zack had responded by making a crack about hoping they weren’t sore losers, causing Jason to upend his plate and scatter bits of lettuce across the table when he protested too enthusiastically. Admittedly, Trini had missed some of the conversation.

And that was all well and good, except Trini wasn’t annoyed by it at all. In fact, she was finding this all to be mildly amusing, and the revelation was shocking.

“Hey, you okay?” Kimberly nudged her lightly in the side, gaze questioning.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m… good,” Trini stammered, and her horror only grew when she realized it was completely true.

 

 

 

“So where are you going today?” Trini was no stranger to the question from her mother, but for some reason she was feeling oddly open.

“I’m actually going to meet some friends now,” she said, pulling her phone out to double check the time and then shouldering her backpack, “We’re going to go for coffee and do some homework, maybe hang out a little.”

The hanging out was going to be done in a sketchy underwater cave with four other superpowered teenagers, all of them trying to beat the crap out of each other as practice for fighting an alien that would be trying to kill them, but her mom didn’t need to know that.

Actually, the coffee and homework part was just going to be Trini and Kimberly, having agreed to meet at the Krispy Kreme before going to training together, and Trini had the slightest suspicion that her relationship with Kimberly was shaping up to be something different than friendship, but her mom didn’t need to know that either.

“Friends?” her mom repeated in a shocked voice, eyes wide with disbelief, and Trini sighed as she realized her mistake.

 

 

 

Ever since she’d mentioned having friends, her parents – mostly her mother, but her father was involved too – had been pestering her for information, prying in the hopes to bond, or whatever.

Trini suffered through it, trying to give them flat answers in an attempt to make them lose interest, but so far it hadn’t worked.

The team would love this, if Trini told them. They’d probably start joking about how important they were, and Kimberly would quip something about Trini not speaking nearly as much as her mother did.

Trini hid a smile at the thought, but when her mother gave her another startled look she hastened to wipe her face clean, putting her indifferent expression back on.

“Well, why don’t you have them over some time? We’d love to meet them.”

Trini’s mouth dropped open as that presented a whole other set of issues she’d never even considered, and her mom stared at her expectantly.

 

She was blaming them for this too.

  

 

* * *

 

After the fight, after Rita and Goldar and more putties than Trini ever imagined they would actually see, they returned their Zords to the ship and then collectively decided to collapse on the ground for a bit, all of them splaying out on the rock floor.

Kimberly’s head wound up on Trini’s stomach, lying at an angle so her legs were slung over Jason’s. Billy was on his back on Trini’s other side, humming softly, and his shoulder was close enough to touch if Trini reached out a hand.

“Hey, crazy girl,” Zack said from above her head, voice weary but happy, and Trini rolled her head to see him. “I’ve got the answer to your question, by the way. From the campfire? If we’re Power Rangers, or if we’re friends.” He gave her half a smile and flopped an arm out, probably with the intention of gesturing to them as a group but accidentally smacking Jason in the head, and Jason murmured his dissent and batted his hand away. “We’re both, I’m pretty sure. Power Rangers _and_ friends. Because this is some Harry Potter shit here.”

“Harry Potter?” Jason slurred, rubbing his face with one hand, and Kimberly grumbled when his elbow knocked into her, curling closer to Trini.

“You know, in the first book, where they’re friends after fighting the troll?”

“Oh, I know this one,” Billy piped up, rolling onto his stomach and smiling over them, “It’s ‘there are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.’ I get it, Zack! Goldar was bigger than twelve feet, though. And wasn’t a mountain troll. But it still works.”

Laughter washed over them, the easiest they'd all felt since meeting each other now that the threat of Rita was no longer hanging over their heads. There was some shuffling as they rearranged themselves, pressing together into a tighter group, but the silence that stretched on was comfortable.

“Oh my god,” Kimberly said suddenly, voice tight with worry, and Trini felt adrenaline shoot through her, waking up in a flash as she pushed herself onto her elbows. The others tensed around her as they waited anxiously for Kimberly to finish her thought, but she just looked at them with a stricken gaze. “Tomorrow’s Friday.” There was another pause, and then, “I haven’t studied for the math test.”

They caught their breaths again, all of them slumping back with relief, and then Trini snorted. The sound set off a chain reaction, because immediately everyone dissolved into laughter, the sound echoing off the high walls around them.

“Kim, I hate to break it to you,” Trini gasped, barely managing to get the words out and her stomach hurting from how hard she was laughing, “but I really don’t think school’s going to be open tomorrow, given what we just finished fighting.”

Kimberly thought about it for a second before she started to chuckle as well, setting them all off in a renewed round of laughter.

Trini curled up on her side as she calmed down, forehead pressed against of Kimberly’s shoulder, and she sighed. “For the record,” she mumbled as she felt Zack, Billy, and Jason group together at her back, “I still think you’re all annoying.”

Kimberly smiled and turned, wrapping both arms around her and then somehow finding the energy to flip them so Trini was lying on top of her, landing them right next to the boys. “Maybe we are. But you like us anyways.”

Billy reached out and put his hand on her arm with a smile, and Jason reached over to rest his hand against her back. Zack whooped and then hooked his arm over to pull her into a headlock, uncaring of the others and the way the motion basically smothered Kimberly with Trini’s loose hair. Kimberly muttered irritably and shoved him away, letting him flop onto his back sandwiched between her and Jason.

“By the way,” Trini mumbled, rubbing her face against Kimberly’s shirt and snuggling closer, letting her eyes slide shut, “My parents kind of told me to invite you all over sometime. So like, you sort of have to come just to get them off my back, because they’re going to think I lied to them and made you all up otherwise.”

“Alright, sure.”

“Sounds fun!”

Trini smirked as they all agreed and started to talk over each other, because none of them knew what they were getting into. She had a feeling that this was all going to end in disaster for her, and lately she’d been learning to trust her feelings, but more importantly, she was learning to trust her friends. If this was going to blow up in her face, then so be it. At least she’d have them standing by her, and they’d already saved the world. What else could possibly go wrong?

 


End file.
